Day One Hundred Twenty-Five and Twenty-Six

I've already blown my resolve to blog everyday but I guess I had a good excuse - preparation of Thanksgiving dinner (although I had started cooking on Sunday and most everything was already in the fridge waiting to be reheated). The turkeys were the only things I needed to cook and also the task of stir frying the brussel sprouts. I must say, and my family seconds it, this meal was the very best of the best when it comes to the feast of the turkey come each November. I relied on several new techniques learned from Cook's Illustrated, probably my favorite cooking magazine. I like the fact that their recipes are tested as I have been burned many times by other cookbooks and cooking magazine recipes that were either marginal or failures. I think that's why I don't use recipes themselves but mainly get inspiration from the ideas and ingredients and then put them together as I see fit, or end up substituting certain ingredients for others that I think will work better. It seems to work for me. Cooking is all about technique and good ingredients as far as I'm concerned.

We did something different this year that I'm sure is going to become a tradition for us both at Thanksgiving and Christmas. At about 1:00 pm on Thanksgiving we sat down to a warm goat cheese, beet, arugula and mandarine orange salad with mandarine orange and vanilla balsamic vinagrette. It was very savory and after we ate and talked a bit, we put on our warm clothes and headed out to Riverview Park for a 2 mile walk. It was brisk, the sky was clear except for a few feathery clouds and the view of the new fallen snow in the valley and on the Sierras was just beautiful. We walked, talked and felt invigorated. When we returned, I just needed to make the gravy, brussel sprouts and carve the turkey. We had a leisurely dinner and didn't feel overly stuffed. Dishes were minimal and so we broke out the Scrabble board and began to play, with Bob leading off with a bizarre word that set the tone of the board for the evening. I never laughed so hard in my life listening to Jay and Eric joke around with the words that ended up finding their way onto the board. At one point I had to leave because my stomach muscles were in jeopardy of exploding. It's bad when these two brothers get together and it gets worse when you start laughing at their jokes! It just spurs them on.

I finally took pictures of the two pastels I did up at St. Mary's Art Center and I'm definitely ready to do some more. The photos I took are a little crooked as they're just taped on my easel but here they are.